"J06:" Moneytalks

This song was done by AC/DC. I honestly wasn't expecting to be able to use this power house of a rock band. Personally, I feel they helped bring 'hard rock' to the forefront of the genre and left it there in the following decades. I felt this title applies because money is needed to buy ALL of these goods, inside or out. Money gets things done; it is influential, and honestly, not a stretch to say it 'talks'.

This post was an online scavenger hunt. I'm going to give a disclaimer right away; I wasn't really sure what to search under for the exhibition photos. So I simply omitted them. It will obviously cost me points, but so be it. All other aspects have be submitted. I'll start with my definition, provide the links to the sites, and finish off with my photos and simple definitions.

In home goods: Products which are designed and intended to be used within the dwelling structure in order to benefit the individual/families life in a positive way including, though not exclusive to, increasing happiness and/or saving time.

Outdoor based companies :

www.coleman.com

www.cabelas.com

www.basspro.com

www.dickssportinggoods.com

www.gandermountain.com

Indoor based compaines:

www.whirpool.com

www.mrclean.com

www.mircrosoft.com

www.bedbathandbeyond.com

www.lowes.com

*Note that all of the examples fit my working definition of an indoor good for the explained reasons. Furthermore, I simply picked products located in one room of my house. In door goods can be a multitude of items, and they do not all need electricity, nor do they all lie solely within a 'kitchen' setting.

Example 1) The microwave, like all of my example, needs electricity to work and would be easily damaged left outdoors. More so, it saves time in the fact that it allows left overs to be quickly warmed and can cook simple meals in a matter of minutes versus the prep and cook time previously required.



A washing machine allows for a simple load and turn on policy. It washes and gives you free time to do other activities.




A indoor stove is convenient since it allows the cooking of meals indoors, away from the elements. It also has the convenient 'start and leave it alone' concept.



"CR03:" Black and White

Ah, todays song title comes from Three Dog Night. Personally, their song called One is my all time favorite by them, but this title was more fitting. It is going to reference the video we watched in class and how this law dealing with the music industry is so cut and dry. Yet, often, with the idea of remixes and such, the legality is a shade of grey, not black and white. So, thank you to Three Dog Night for putting a classic touch on my music, and let's get on to the post.

Now we reach yet another junction where we can reflect on past knowledge gleaned from class. I'll start off with the lecture that dealt with legality issues and color schemes. I'd like to start by saying that color is really neat concept to play with. The idea that pure light consists of all colors and is simply refracted, or broken into its seperate components, which gives the represetation of color. And then color gets absorbed or repelled by objects which in turn represents a component of color. It is pretty cool. Now, from a designers point of view, color plays an even more pivatol role. I feel that, without color, images would not play nearly an important role in advertising for products. I feel like the expression 'a picture is worth a thousand words' becomes more like a hundred words when a lack of color exists. It serves to draw focus; it can guide a viewers thoughts and attention. Not to mention the optical ticks it can play on the eye. Color is a very influential part of design. But what about legality in design? Anymore, legal issues over things like copyrights and patents can seriously inpair a persons ability to design. The original inent, I feel, was to encourage people to be creative knowing their ideas where theirs alone and they would be justly compensated. Now, I feel like they exist to serve as warning and limit creative issue. After all, if parts of older ideas are modified but incorporated into a designers new and unique invention, the designer would get into trouble. And to me, the 'new' designs are becomming few and far between with most designs simply trying to improve on something old. Yet I feel like now, it is just a few short steps from going to court every time.

And then to further my thoughts from the legal lecture, we were shown a movie called "Rip!: A Remix Manifest" in class. I still haven't come up with a stance on this position. This movie covered two class days, so I'll quickly sum it up. The idea is ideas are able to be copyrighted, and often are, by very large corporations. And then you have people who mix, mash, and reuse parts of these ideas in very different and unique ways which haven't been done. Thus, these people, these artists, have created something new themselves. And the questions is, who has the rights to it? Is it fair to allow corporations to own ideas? And if so, can you sue people who take those ideas and apply them in a different way or a new form? Because right now, as a whole, the government supports the large corporations who are trying to limit or restrict the usage of intellectual based ideas. The movie was focused primarily on music, and thus the compaines anf affiliates related to that field. But it brings us important questions I feel. Why do we allow people to copyright ideas which can be used to save lives? How is it fair that ideas, which are just that, an idea and NOT a tangible product, can be restricted and taken out of use? Now, I feel that some things a company should be entitled to reimbursement. For instance, if a majority of their product is used in a new design, then yes. If some one takes their product or idea and makes money off of it, then perhaps the original company should be entitled to a small percentage off of the sales. But on the flip side, I feel like ideas should not be allowed to be 'owned' by a corporation to begin with. An idividual, yes. But a corporation, no. See, when a business owns intellectual property, they do so ONLY to earn profit. It is the only reason they could have; unrestricted usage, for themselves, in order to make money. But if the individual has the idea, then they to make money off of it and copyright it. After all, it was their idea. And furthermore, it should not be fair to patent something for such long periods of time. Again, it hurts the general well being of the population. Now, this is why I am on the fence, because essentially, this is what the debate boils down to. Should we allow an individual, or company, profit off of an idea at the expense of the general populace? Or should the general populace have equal access to all ideas, yet prevent the individual, or company, from earning money and improving their own life? I feel like a careful balance needs to be found because both extremes are detremental. With excessive profits, quality of life goes down. Yet with no profits, no one can invent or create new ideas, thus quality of life also goes down. I think that'll be enough for now, just know that both sides have merit, and I feel like right now we are not in balance and need to find it again. As a final thought, maybe I should say I recommend anyone who DOES listen to my music, and like it, to LEGALLY obtain it. I in no way condone illegal piracy. Please don't sue me! : - )

And finally, we had some guest speakers pay us a visit in class. One set were some students going though the design major, and the other set were some recent graduates of the program who have started their own firm. This was mainly information sessions, kinda touching base with the programs and their personal experiences so I don't have alot of in depth analysis here. Basically, I feel like there are some cool opportunities within design, but it is not an easy major in which a person could just coast through. Since I'm only minoring, I apparantly don't have to worry about the entrance exams and formal applications (assuming I heard correctly) so I wish the best of luck to those of you out there who are going to major in this!

"J05:" Cheers Darlin'

...Is brought to you by Damien Rice. If you guys have checked out any of the prior tunes, you will realize this guy is totally different from everything presented so far. He is in the folk genre and can easily impact your emotions/mood. Frankly put, the guy has a gorgeous voice. And I chose this one because the title makes me think of catching up with colleagues over a drink. And isn't that the point of peer dialogues? After reviewing the last peer dialogue session, I plan to keep this one about as simple. There are plenty of comments which could be made for each, but I think I'll limit myself to just a couple of thoughts/points. Also, in spirit of this 'peer dialogue' idea, I think I'll end my posts now with a question posed to my fellow group members. Might be fun to engage, eh? To be fair, Bridget inspired this idea from her post. So I think I'll dive in now, mentioning the various pictures/comments which tickle my fancy. And I believe I started with Bridget first on the prior posting, so guess what Dan? You're up first!

Your found faces posting was definitely entertaining. Loved the 'three eyed monster', and because of that, the child inside of me will forever be terrified of Parmesan cheese bottles now! As if there weren't enough scary creatures trying to get my inner kid already...Heh, but all joking aside, neat concept in the attempt to avoid a traditional face. For my second "thumbs up" to Dan, I looked to his post based on past designers. Specifically, Shiro Kuramata. It seems fitting giving the emphasis spent early on concerning chairs that his designer made a couple contributions of his own. Good call picking someone more modern, thus perhaps easier to relate to. And you provided some fine pictures of his work. I especially liked the dressers, with the extreme curvature. Reminds me of something you would find in a cartoon.

http://dancsp11.blogspot.com/

And of course, who could forget his partner in crime, Bridget? The first thing that jumped out at me was the lack of diverse postings. It is a bit hard to compliment and make conversation over pieces that aren't there! Of course, I tend to stay ahead on these assignments due to my course load, so I'm sure she will have all sorts of things posted after I get this done (I'd bet even by tomorrow, she will have some of the most interesting thoughts uploaded). So, I'll start with her designers as well. I noticed she had an eye out for architects, and frankly, I can't say I blame her. They have some of the most easily recognizable pieces (after all, you can't really hide a skyscraper). I picked 'Asymptote Architecture' for two reasons: the first, the partners started their company the year I was born. Good year, if I say so myself. But more importantly, I liked them due to the example of their handiwork which Bridget provided. That tower in Seoul is stunning. It appears 'futuristic' in the sense that it is sleek, and, well, if a building can be thought of as such, sexy. I feel it is cocky and boastful creation, but to be honest, I feel it has the right to be. And secondly, I just wanted to compliment you on the idea of posting questions for us to reply to within your peer dialogue. Never would have thought of that without reading your last post.

http://bridgetmears.blogspot.com/

With that thought in mind, I have to say my color palate is very open. If I had to chose a favorite color, I might say green? I don't necessarily have one, but I prefer dark hues of colors. If it is towards the white end of the light spectrum, I tend not to the object it is applied to very seriously. Dark blues, greens, and reds are the best with blacks and greys rounding them off.

So now I should think of a question. I will try to keep mine design related to help with grades for these posts. If you had an object in which you were to design, and knowing you could only optimize one of the two key components (form versus functionality), which would you choose and why? I'll always post my answer here as well. I would choose functionality. The short answer? I'm a wanna be engineer. But what I mean is I judge the value of objects by their use. And while I enjoy looking at paintings, or admiring shapes of chairs, I ultimately don't care how it looks. I want my design to work well because it is tangible to measure, as is its resulting value. Where as the form of the object is basically 'art' and is incredibly hard to judge its true value since it is completely subjective to perspective.

"A04:" You Speak My Language

Song title was from Collective Soul. Surprisingly, I don't have a lot of music which relates to letters or language in the title. This was the only one I could easily find, which is disappointing, because the song is mediocre. I wasn't really moved by this one, but the title is the closest fit I have so there it is. Side note, Collective Soul does have very enjoyable music. This particular one just doesn't do it for me. I should begin by saying this was one of my favorite assignments thus far for this class. To prove this, I went a bit out of my way to track down all twenty six letters, not just the twelve required. Once I started, it just seemed really easy to find letters within, well, everything. Apparently, though, not every letter receives equal emphasis (for example, I had trouble finding F and Z, but I could find O in practically everything I looked at). So, a couple of the pictures are harder to see the apparent letter, but I'll be posting them in alphabetical order and providing descriptions when I feel the letter appears more abstract.

A) It was a bike frame tied up to a rack. The frame forms the outer 'A' and the rack makes the cross section. Of course, there are several other bikes that can form the cross on the A, but I saw it as the bike frame with the corresponding, closest rack it was tied up to.

B) This was a latch on a fence in my backyard. It makes a lower case 'b'.  

C) This picture was of one half of the two piece plastic shield used on a heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer I own  

D) I flipped a coffee mug upside down and took the picture as is because with the light on it like so, a shadow is cast by the handle back onto the side of the cup. So with the shadow and the handle, I saw the capital 'D'

E) I took a picture of some road lines outside of the Black Well on campus. I distinctly saw the letter 'E', and by cropping of the picture, I think it will be more apparent to others.

F) This letter took some creativity on my part to see. But if you look at the one fan blade which appears to be perfectly vertical in this picture, and follow it from the tip upwards to where the two metal cords are hanging. There lies the capital 'F'.

G) A picture of a roll of scotch tape. Lower case 'g'.

H) A wooden chair from the dinning room table. Makes a capital 'H'.

I) The memory unit port with the wireless sync button on top of it located on an Xbox 360 forms the lower case 'i'.

J) A plastic coat hanger, when focused on the top with the hook, forms the letter 'J' 

K) A metal musical stand forms a lop sided 'k'.

L) Located at the base of a metal support pillar at the edge of the car port outside of my home. A capital 'L' should be easily spotted.

M) To be honest, this might be cheating. It is a symbol of the prominent business known as McDonalds. So it could be taken as an image of an M, or it could be seen as a picture of an actual letter. Either way, it is what I used for my letter.  

N) Found this oddly colored bench outside of Big Lots. The ends of it look like a lower case 'n' to me.

O) A picture of our in home central air unit. The thin wire metals form multiple 'o's with a solid one at the center.

P) This is my take on the letter 'p'. Just happened to notice the door hinge to a stall in a bathroom in the basement of Dreese Labs.

Q) Rummaging through my shed, I came across my bike in this position. With the pedal at that angle, it looked like a capital 'Q' to me.

R) This was my roommates chair, with my roommate sitting in it no less. He was gracious enough to let me take a picture of the arm rest, which appeared to resemble a lower case 'r' to me.

S) This one is pretty obvious. It is an 's' hook my roommate uses to anchor his hammock to the wall. That's right, he sleeps in a hammock.

T) The letter 't' was found on my laptops battery charger. It resembled a cross like structure, or rather, a 't'.

U) These items are the bike racks located outside of the Fisher College of Business. I simply took the image and inverted it on my laptop in order to distinctly show the letter 'U' and not 'n'.

V) This letter was found outside of the Hitchcock Hall on top of a piece of metal based art work. Could double as a 'K', roman numeral five, or as I saw it, a 'V'  

W) Another image garnered from my shed. I found our garden rake and noticed the prongs resembled a repeating pattern of 'w's. So I cropped it to portray just one.

X) Miniature 'x' was located on my book bag. It is actually meant as a headphone hole, so a media device can be placed in the pouch to both conceal and easily carry it while still allowing the user to listen to it.  

Y) I have an old wood burning stove which has been used in awhile. And upon it, there is a knob which allows the control of the air vent to be open and closed at will. This is the said knob with its cob webs, clearly in the shape of a 'Y'

Z) And finally, I used my guitars capo to illustrate the letter 'z'. Sort of a stretch, and definitely crooked, I promise it is there!

"J04:" Faceless Man

This song is done by Creed. On to the post now.This post was pretty unique, and definatley fun to look for. It was suppose to be focused on faces found in on or in products which were not intended to have one. So here it goes; the few I found or noticed in my life.

Picture 1)

 
This picture was a total accident. I had stopped by to use the bathroom in the Central Classroom building before class one morning, and the paper dispenser in there was missing the cover. On the inside was located this image. I actually laughed when I saw this.

Picture 2)

Perhaps an obvious item. This was a simple power outlett foundin my house. I have always thought they were a 'face' since I was a child. I have always seen it as a 'shocked' expression!

Picture 3)

I saw this an a slightly skewed face, something you might see on a childs doll or possibly in a painting. The portrait is actually the leg post of my lofted bed, with the eyes being a couple of bolts and the mouth structure a slotted piece of wood.

Picture 4)

I had trouble getting the camera to focus, as the light reflected so poorly off of this one. The picture is actually a candle in which I was staring straight down at. The three wicks form the eyes/mouth, with the circular outline to emphasize a round face.

Picture 5)

Perhpas a bit of a stretch, since I kinda doctored this setup myself, though not on purpose. I had been playing a bit on my X-box and laid a couple games on top. Later while I was watching tv, I noticed the way I layed them, at an angle, looked like oversized eyes, with the tray kinda looking like a mouth. Again, maybe a bit of a stretch, but it was coincedental and I liked the image.



"CR02:" Powerful Stuff

The Fabulous Thuderbirds were the band who preformed todays title. Technically in the rock genre, it has a very strong southern country feel to it. Think of Lynard Skynard; while they don't necessarily sound the same, the genre is closer to that. Strong guitar part, decent vocals. I recommend checking it out. Moving on to the actual post, this is the second course reflection based off of the past four lectures.

Day 5) This lecture was dedicated the the designing process. It was focused on the different ways or methods used when deciding the process of design. Often, this process isn't simple. It requires plenty of research through analyzing the product in question, discussing the potential problems, creating multiple solutions to the various aspects, etc. And these solutions need to be combined, deciding which aspects to keep and/or combine. And then there needs to be a prototype created and tested. It was informative to break down and analyze this process, especially with the demonstration video where the team built a 'better' shopping cart. I hadn't given the process of design alot of thought before, but I imagined it was only linear. So it was suprising to me to learn the repetitive nature of the design process, how it branches out and captures various aspects which were not initially considered.

Day 6) On day six, I actually missed class. Most days I have to be up by six in order to be on compus by eight. Anyways, I forgot to turn on my alarm and I slept till about eleven thirty, thus didn't make it. The point is, the only insight gained was from reading the lecture notes online. This lecture seemed to really focus on the importance of creating designs which are universally accessible products and buildings. Specifcally, it looked at creating product designs which were able to be used by people who are imparied or disabled in some way. There are many forms these disabilities can take, but what I see as being incredably important to this area of design are the baby boomers. See, this term represents a very large amount of people in our society. And these people are rapidly approaching retiree states, which means they are becomming the commonly thought of elderly. At this point in their life, mundane activities become difficult, and special aid or assisstance is needed. But designs are made for younger, healthy individuals. And since the baby boomers are a very large percentage of the population, this should become a very profitable investament oppurtunity for future designers.

Day 7) This post will be a bit shorter, since it didn't have alot of critical thinking/learning involved. This day was spent on a scavenger hunt around the university. We visited the Wexner Center, the math and science library, Knowlton Hall's library, and finally, Thompson Library. It was a lighter, more fun day as far as classes go. I got to spend some time with my fellow group members and act goofy in a couple of photos. It was also nice to revisit the chairs disscussed in the first week; I don't get to see or sit in chairs like those very often.

Day 8) Ah, this lecture was focused heavily upon the green movement and how design can impact our enviornment positvely. This lecture was, as a side note, possibly my favorite so far as well. Mainly because the green movement, in a traditional sense, irrates me. See, the green movement leads people to believe that we, as a society, are horrible and doing nothing but harm to our planet. And they use the argument that they are only interested in saving the planet, and thus, our future generations. So anyone who opposes them are "bad" and absolutley does not care about the well being of our enviornment. Basically, the movement tries to place guilt on people who do not follow their beliefs and acts as if they only serve the greater good of humanity. But does it really? I don't think so. See, to 'go green', it requires a number of negatives. For example, if you go green and boycott industries and their products due to the pollution it generates, what happens? People lose jobs, prices on products go up, thus the poor can no longer afford to buy them which creates a further dividing line between classes and ultimately, unrest among citizens, and industry goes out of business. Does it help the enviornment? Yes. But does it do so at the expense of the people, whose future is the ultimate concern of the green movement? Yes. The problem is, so often, their goals and speech is a concealed lie. The trick is to find balance, because extremes in both directions ultimately hurt our race. Yet 'eco friendly' is simply the green movement, which ultimately places the enviornements concern ahead of people. Simply put, I feel it will be our technology and knowledge that secures a place for furture generations, not plants and animals. I don't condone needless destruction of the enviornment, but progress should not be obstructed because of it either.     

"A03:" I Would Walk 500 Miles

Todays title comes to you from The Proclaimers. Kinda a one hit wonder, but it was a very catchy song. Now, for a quick view into our "elaborate" process and planning. Originally, there were only three 10's, but the fourth one was given out to a fellow classmate and thus, joined with our merry band. We decided to google the names of the designers, matching names with achievements. From there, it was a quick discussion on the order to hit the stops. We begin with the Wexner, and tried to make as few stops as quickly as possible. Known accomplises include Bridget and Dan. She was the photographer for me and Dan was witnessed in a couple of my shots. Links are as follows:

http://bridgetmears.blogspot.com/
http://dancsp11.blogspot.com/

Clue Number 1)

So the first clue is looking for the famous Barcelona Chair. Here sits Dan, striking a thinking pose, and myself, taking a nap. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was the designer and for an interesting fact, the chair was made with the intent to be shown off at an international exposition representing Germanys contribution. Fun fact.

Clue Number 2)

In hindsight, this wasn't the best view of the chair to prove we visited Knowlton. But, I promise, this was taken inside of the library there. And the chair in which I am sitting is the Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld. Interesting fact about that guy? He got involved with architecture as well and designed the Rietveld Schroder House. Oh, and I guess I should mention a bit about the book/picture. Heh, I made that specific face because the design article I picked out was completely done in Spanish.

Clue Number 3)

Here, we have the Wexner Center's lovely corridor of lights, with a very distant/tiny me treating it as a casual leaning post. For the interesting fact, this building was designed to smooth the different angle of the city's grid layout with OSU's. It actually does an excellent job of this.

Clue Number 4)

Philip Johnson was the man who designed the math and science library. And this particular building was designed in a manner in which the arches show the front with one arch in particular being much larger and more defined than the others. This is done on purpose, as if to becon people to that specific entrance. In the picture it is denoted by the lack of windows directly above it and the off colored pattern when compared to the brick around it.

Clue Number 5)

And here, we have the Thompson Library, done by Acock and Associates. This photo was taken to capture Mr. William Thompson himself as well as the main library on campus. The architecture has quite a modern feel to it and the inside offers an astounding view over the oval and the surrounding areas.